Hearings on Water Permits for Indian Point

CORTLANDT, N.Y. — A giant power plant that kills tiny fish eggs is leading engineers, government officials, politicians and advocates of all stripes into a fourth year of debate about which side represents concern for the environment, and whether the fish are actually the issue.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation opened hearings on Tuesday on renewing water quality permits for the Indian Point nuclear reactors and possibly shutting them down for two or three hot-weather months during the Hudson River’s peak fish migration season, as an alternative to building two cooling towers. No decision will come for at least another two years “at the very earliest,” according to the department.

The idea is ostensibly to reduce the number of small aquatic organisms that are parboiled when they are sucked through its cooling water intake system, or killed when they hit the intake screens.

Riverkeeper, a group focused on the Hudson, asserts that the plants have killed a billion fish a year for the last 40 years, which it characterizes as a “severe” impact.

The department is seeking to force the plant, owned by Entergy, to get the water permits as part of its license renewal, and favors cooling towers as the “best technology available.”

Plant executives maintain that they have a valid permit, but are proposing a new water intake system in the river, which would reduce fish kills and cost a small fraction of the price of cooling towers, which could cost more than a billion dollars and are opposed by local officials. Supporters also questioned the degree to which the destroyed eggs affect the fish population.

“Yes, some fish eggs are killed,” John Kelly, a retired Indian Point manager, said. “Ninety-five percent of fish eggs are killed anyway and become food for other fish.”

If the plant is closed, he said, other plants will run more, also cooled by Hudson River water. Fish populations are healthy, he said.

But Manna Jo Greene, the environmental director of the Hudson Sloop Clearwater, said that the plant, in northwestern Westchester County, killed 1.2 billion fish annually, and that the idea of a summer shutdown was inadequate. “We need winter, spring and summer outages,” she said at the hearing.

Supporters of the plant brought in a bus filled with people who said Indian Point’s operation was crucial to them. Without Indian Point, more gas-fired generators would be built in largely minority neighborhoods, adding to air pollution, said Kirsten John Foy, a spokesman for the National Action Network, which is led by the Rev. Al Sharpton. The problem, he said, is “not just the potential impacts on fish but the real impact on people.”

Others representing labor groups, business groups and minority businesses also testified; one woman said she came from a group opposed to gun violence, which she traced to economic problems.

Outside the hearing room, supporters distributed T-shirts that said “Indian Point Energy Center: We’re Right for New York.” Several people held signs reading “Protect Human Health Too.”

Many of the plant’s opponents, who were outnumbered, sidestepped the theatrics and confined themselves to written comments. Many of the opponents who spoke did not mention fish.

Arthur Kremer, a former New York State assemblyman and the head of a group that backs the plants, called New York AREA, said the discussion was a “subterfuge for closing Indian Point, and not some environmental solution for a particular problem.” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Riverkeeper and Clearwater, another group focused on the river, list numerous reasons for wanting the plants closed, including the threat of a terrorist attack, an earthquake or an accident.

The plants provide about a quarter of the electricity in the New York City area, and their loss would jeopardize grid stability, according to the state’s grid operator. The plants could be replaced, but their continued operation has discouraged potential builders of new power plants or power lines.

The grid’s pricing system is on a hair trigger to jump in case of shortage, promising higher prices for all users when plants with low operating costs, like Indian Point, are shut, experts say.

The license for one of the plant’s two reactors expired last year, though it can continue to operate under rules established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The reactor is akin to a visitor with an expired visa with an appeal pending with the government for an extension.

The license for the other reactor expires late next year. Both units must continue to meet detailed, stringent operating rules.

The commission has not said whether it would approve a 20-year license extension if it concluded the plant was safe for one, but the standoff with the state over cooling water continues.

A precedent involving the relicensing of another nuclear power plant, Vermont Yankee, suggests that the state’s power might be limited. In that case, the Vermont Legislature withheld a permit that the owner — also Entergy — needed for continued operation.

The state said the plant was too old to be efficient. But Entergy sued and won a federal court ruling saying that the Legislature’s concern was not really efficiency but safety, and that under the Atomic Energy Act, safety was solely a federal concern.

Entergy bought the Indian Point reactors in 2001 from two powerful, well-connected entities: Consolidated Edison and New York State itself, which owned one of the reactors through the Power Authority.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Hearings on Water Permits for Indian Pt.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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